We wanted to experience the fun of raising kittens, so when our cat came into heat we let her outside for a few hours at a time-- 9 weeks later she had a litter of 5 kittens.

Watching her waddle around the house during her 9 week pregnancy was a sight to see. She nearly lost her ability to hop up on the couch as she was getting rather large. Then one Sunday night, she started meowing loudly and pacing around the living room. Is it time yet, we thought? Then she went into a bedroom, came out and stared at us. She repeated this several times, a plea for "help, I don't know what's going on here". It was the cutest thing, though. She plopped down in a corner of the bedroom and started her labor with some loud howling. I saw a tail come out, but that was it for awhile. My husband started getting worried and tried pulling the newborn out, by the tail. Whoops, that was a mistake as he ended up pullin half the poor kitten's tail right off. I will never forget the shocked expression on his face. We decided not to interfere and momma gave birth to 5 kittens. The one with half a tail actually had some bone left at the tip of what was left of the tail, and we know that would have to come off so the skin could grow aropund. Mom cat took care of that, because after about 2 weeks we noticed, one day that the bony end was trimmed down to where the skin began. She must have sensed something wasn't right there and bit it off. We kept him, named him "stubby" and he is none the worse for wear. Gets more attention now, too!

I was under the impression that it would be difficult finding new homes for the kittens. We decided to keep 2 kitties and put a weekend ad in the newspaper for the other 3. The phone started ringing at 8:00 a.m on the Friday the ad came out and didn't slow down til Monday, though we still received calls up until Wednesday. What a demand! I thought the animal shelters were filled up with homeless kittens. Most of the requests were for females of which we had 2. Finding homes for our kittens was so easy that we might consider having another litter soon. But there are 2 problems with this- 1) We become attached to the kittens and had a difficult time parting with them. 2) Listening to the moaning & howling of a cat that seems to go into heat every few weeks is, in itself, enough incentive for us to have her spayed sooner rather than later.

We had 1 kitten who stopped feeding from the mom cat so we had to start bottle feeding her. We new little about this so we called a pet store and they told us to get "Just Born" milk replacer, put some in a bottle and our kitten took to it right away

Experiencing the birth of kittens was a whole lot of fun. Watching the 3 remainig ones getting adopted and leaving wasn't. I don't expect I will ever see them again; Although I wonder if, at sometime in the future when they are all grown up- maybe even with a family of their own, there might come a time, while relaxing on their favorite sofa, that they start to wonder about life and other things. They ponder, become a little curious of their roots, find few answers to their questions and come a calling one day. Hmmmmmm.... maybe... just maybe.

Gotta go, something's scratching at the door!

Read my other article on self vaccinating your cat